‘We Went To The Moon In 1969’: How The ‘Even Stevens’ Musical Episode Changed The Disney Channel Forever

On January 25, 2002, the Disney Channel aired the Even Stevens episode “Influenza: The Musical.” In many ways, the network hasn’t been the same since then. The musical episode of this beloved show occurred at the end of its second season. As was customary of all Disney shows at the time, there would only be three seasons, but despite the sitcom’s short run, the show had a lasting impact. “Influenza” specifically proved to the channel’s executives that kids love a good musical and that the format would work for future sitcoms and original movies. After “Influenza,” the network followed suit with a musical episode of That’s So Raven, the original movie High School Musical in 2006, and its first sequel, which is their highest-rated original movie to date.

Premiering in mid-2000, Even Stevens came to be during the Zoog Disney era of the channel, a rebranding of the network that started in 1998 with shows like So Weird, The Famous Jett Jackson, and The Jersey, original movies like Brink and Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, and promos with little creatures called Zoogs that encouraged kids to get on the World Wide Web. In the midst of all this was Even Stevens.

Damn this was an ill & nostalgic article. All the songs started playing in my head, every time We had even days in school, we bust out singing the 6th period joint. Even stevens is still the shit. Still looking for a Sacramento girl that says yeah !

Even Stevens was a legitimately funny show. They overacted like crazy, but it was more of a self-mocking way of overacting where they were making it into a joke itself. And I had a huge crush on Ren in middle school for the record